Python/Django: How to remove extra white spaces & tabs from a string?

Question

I'm building a website with Python/Django. Users submit tags. Each tag can contain multiple words. Each tag has an ID number. I want to make sure tags that are formatted slightly differently are still being recognized as the same tag.

For example, if one user submitted the tag "electric guitar" and the other submitted "electric guitar" (2 white spaces between the 2 words) I want to be able to recognize they are the same tag.

How to I remove all the extra white spaces and tabs in this case? Thanks.

score 53 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 22 '10 at 02:33

53

Split on any whitespace, then join on a single space.

' '.join(s.split())

answered Nov 22 '10 at 02:33

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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5

or newline = ' '.join(oldline.split()) ... is took me a minute to find that out as a newbie. – Framester Jun 17 '11 at 18:12
Note that this removes any whitespace before and after the string – Andy Chase Aug 02 '13 at 21:27

ThiefMaster · Answer 2 · 2012-12-22T01:30:09.950

20

>>> import re
>>> re.sub(r'\s+', ' ', 'some   test with     ugly  whitespace')
'some test with ugly whitespace'

edited Dec 22 '12 at 01:30

answered Nov 22 '10 at 02:34

ThiefMaster

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score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 22 '10 at 02:32

7

I would use Django's slugify method, which condenses spaces into a single dash and other helpful features:

from django.template.defaultfilters import slugify

answered Nov 22 '10 at 02:32

Marcus Whybrow

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Then you don't need to worry about things like case, either. – Chris Morgan Nov 22 '10 at 03:35
I think that slugify is the best exhaustive solution, whereas things like splitting and joining, solves just this problem specifically. I like to leave it up to the Django devs. – Marcus Whybrow Nov 22 '10 at 03:38

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 22 '10 at 02:33

1

"electric guitar".split() will give you ['electric', 'guitar']. So will "electric \tguitar".

answered Nov 22 '10 at 02:33

nmichaels

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zzart · Answer 5 · 2013-06-19T13:27:11.857

-2

This function removes everything which is not digit in a string. I use it all over the place.

def parseInt(string):
    if isinstance(string, (str, int, unicode)):
        try:
            digit = int(''.join([x for x in string if x.isdigit() ]))
        except ValueError:
            return False
        else:
            return digit
    else:
        return False

edited Jun 19 '13 at 13:27

answered Jun 19 '13 at 13:00

zzart

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score -10 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 23 '10 at 06:54

-10

There could be many white spaces like below:

var = "         This      is the example  of how to remove spaces   "

Just do simple task like, use replace function:

realVar = var.replace(" ",'')

Now the outpur would be:

Thisistheexampleofhowtoremovespaces

Just Chill......... :-)

answered Dec 23 '10 at 06:54

Deepak 'Kaseriya'

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since this removes the spaces, it's not an proper answer to the problem of the question – Jorge Luis Oct 15 '21 at 04:45

Python/Django: How to remove extra white spaces & tabs from a string?

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